How can I stop being a choke artist on math tests?

Daverisimo said:
When I say the pythagorean identity, I just mean that, for a given angle x, sin^2x+cos^2x=1, which is basically just a restating of the pythagorean theorem. As for that, it literally means that for a given right triangle with sides of lengths a and b, and a hypotenuse of length c, the areas of squares built off of sides a and b when summed up equal the area of a square built off of side c

pythagoreantheorem.gif


I'm sure there's a more rigorous proof out there, but the visual proof is sufficient to understand what's going on here, and it's more or less how Euclid actually thought of it.
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Gotcha, yeah I know what the Pythagorean identity is in that case. And I never saw that square example before actually, seems to make sense though
 
Daverisimo said:
When I say the pythagorean identity, I just mean that, for a given angle x, sin^2x+cos^2x=1, which is basically just a restating of the pythagorean theorem. As for that, it literally means that for a given right triangle with sides of lengths a and b, and a hypotenuse of length c, the areas of squares built off of sides a and b when summed up equal the area of a square built off of side c

I'm sure there's a more rigorous proof out there, but the visual proof is sufficient to understand what's going on here, and it's more or less how Euclid actually thought of it.
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Well, actually it was not even Pythagoras that came up with it but the Mesopotamians. They invented the Pythagoras theorem before Pythagoras.
 
The stuff you're mentioning is very basic. You should know it so well that you don't have to memorize it.
Keep practicing. Every waking minute should be spent reading your books.

It will sink in eventually.
 
ever thought about checking your answers before handing in the test?
 
tkotom said:
Well, actually it was not even Pythagoras that came up with it but the Mesopotamians. They invented the Pythagoras theorem before Pythagoras.
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Huh, never heard of that. I actually still have to take a history of math course to satisfy a writing requirement. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it (even though I'm sure it'll be Eurocentric as all hell).

BTW, nice Feynman av :icon_chee
 
Daverisimo said:
Huh, never heard of that. I actually still have to take a history of math course to satisfy a writing requirement. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it (even though I'm sure it'll be Eurocentric as all hell).

BTW, nice Feynman av :icon_chee
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That could be interesting!

Haha, thanks.
 
I just make sure I completely understand (not memorize) how to do the hardest examples (usually just pick a cpuple that look hard) for each type of question in the textbook if it's in the assigned problems. If your problem is just intermediate steps like adding/substracting make sure to double check

I don't really have time to double check in uni but in high school there was loads of time and I'd be able to do the test two or three times lol. Don't have to go that extreme but double check carefully, I always found a couple dumb mistakes. Precalc was also my best course in gr 11 and 12 tho
 
take your time and be confident in what you're doing brah, if you work hard you'll be fine
 
Daverisimo said:
So yeah, I study math, and I'm a math tutor. I think your problem (which is a problem I see over and over again with people in basic math) might be that you're trying to memorize steps rather than actually understand the material. I can't really say for sure, as I don't know how you actually study, but that tends to be the most common problem with students in lower level math courses. My advice: as you're learning shit, try to slow down and understand what the fuck you're actually doing, and why you're doing it. Instead of trying to memorize a massive fucking list of trig. identities, learn how those identities are actually derived, so you can derive them yourself in case you forget. And the same goes for calc, or diffyQ, or linear algebra, or any other math course you ever fucking take.

That's the beautiful thing about math really. It's not about testing your ability to memorize shit, it's about testing your ability to actually think.
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Meh, there's a fair amount of memorizing shit too. The sad part is that the memorization becomes basically useless when you actually have to use math on the job (I should know, I'm a data scientist), and only understanding matters. Reason? Because it's really, really easy to look up a trig identity on the off chance you may need it, but that's totally useless unless you know enough to know you need to use the identity in the first place. I forgot most of my linear algebra identities long ago (I literally have a post it note with the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality on my computer screen because I always forget what it is when I come across it in papers), but I understand the important concepts like matrix rank, decomposition, eigen vectors, etc well enough that I know where to look when I need to solve a problem.
 
Kevin Rudd said:
ever thought about checking your answers before handing in the test?
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Last time I took pre calculus was 10+ years ago in highschool, but I agree with this. What kind of problems are they? Are they not problems you can check to see if you have the correct answer?
 
what parts are you messing up on? its too hard to tell without seeing examples of your mistakes.
 
Try this: read the questions in your professor's voice. Worked for me some times.

Also, practice. Practice more.
 
decline all offers made from men offering their genitals for you to taste, problem solved.
 
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